KIEV, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- The first train carrying Ukrainian grain products has arrived at the Latvian port of Riga, the Interfax-Ukraine news agency reported Tuesday.

The cargo train, consisting of 54 containers with 1,423 tons of rapeseed, arrived at the port through the Kaunas Intermodal Terminal in Lithuania, said the report.

Commenting on the arrival, Latvian Transport Minister Kaspars Briskens promised further efforts to integrate Ukraine into the European transport network.

STOCKHOLM, October 17. /TASS/: Sweden has received data on damage to the underwater telecommunication cable running between Estonia and Sweden, Civil Defense Minister Karl-Oskar Bolin said at a press conference.

"We cannot assess what caused the damage," he said. "But we can state that this damage occurred in a time and space close to the reported damage to the gas pipeline [between Finland and Estonia]," the minister pointed out.

17 October 2023; MEMO: The Palestinian resistance has said it has between 200-250 Israelis held as prisoners of war.

The details were released along with a short video of one of the captives. 21-year-old Mia Schem could be seen in the footage being treated after she was wounded in her arm, and later speaking to the camera.

MOSCOW, Oct 17 (Reuters) - Russia's parliament took the first step on Tuesday towards revoking ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and its top lawmaker warned the United States that Moscow might even abandon the pact altogether.

Russia says the aim is to restore parity with the United States, which has signed but never ratified the 1996 treaty, and that it will not resume testing unless Washington does.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — For hours and hours, Moen Abu Aish digs through the rubble of demolished homes to find survivors of Israeli airstrikes, toiling in a vast and desperate search complicated by the shortage of critical supplies and the sheer scope of destruction across the Gaza Strip.

17 October 2023; MEMO: The head of the Hamas political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, received a phone call from Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who expressed “Malaysia’s support and solidarity with the Palestinian people and with Gaza in the battle of Al-Aqsa flood.”

The Hamas movement said in a press statement yesterday that Ibrahim stressed that Malaysia refuses to respond to the pressure the West is putting on it to push it to condemn Hamas.

MOSCOW, October 17. /TASS/: Russian forces have destroyed over 250 Ukrainian combat helicopters since the start of the special military operation in Ukraine, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported on Tuesday.

17 October 2023; MEMO: Major General Dr Mohamed Abdel Fadil Shousha, Governor of North Sinai, yesterday received Dr Khaled Abdel Ghaffar, Egyptian Minister of Health, in the city of Bir Al-Abd during his visit to North Sinai Governorate.

16 October 2023; MEMO: A group of opposition leaders, including some present and former parliamentarians, on Monday met the Palestinian envoy in New Delhi to express “solidarity” and urged an “immediate cessation of all hostilities to prevent further loss of innocent lives and the destruction of homes and infrastructure”, Anadolu Agency reports.

17 October 2023; MEMO: Three Ukrainian children who had been taken to Russia are to be released to Qatari diplomats in Moscow this week under a mechanism Qatar has set-up with the goal of returning many more children from Russia to Ukraine, a Qatari official briefed on the plans told Reuters yesterday.

17 October 2023; MEMO: Member of Hamas’ Political Bureau, Izzat Al-Rishq, said the Israeli occupation army has “failed miserably” to make any political or military achievement in its aggression against the Gaza Strip.

16 October 2023; MEMO: The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) warned yesterday on X that fuel reserves at all hospitals in the Gaza Strip are likely to run out within the next 24 hours.

It added in its daily report on the situation in Gaza last night that the shutdown of backup generators threatens the lives of thousands of patients.